46 year old Valeka Riegel was shocked when she saw her son for the first time. Most of his face was covered by a huge sack– and the mom couldn’t even see his eyes.

Of course, the parents were worried when they first saw their son’s ultrasound. They could see that their son Zakary had a huge sack on his face.

They discovered that the baby had suffered from encephaloceles – a sack like protrusion on the brain – something that is extremely rare. According to government health agency CDC, only about 1 in 12 200 babies in the US are born with the condition every year.

The first time mom Valeka saw her son, she couldn’t stop crying.

“There was only a large protrusion and tiny little lips – no eyes, no nose, no eyelashes.,” she tells Faith Tap.

Little Zakary was generally in good health, but he had trouble breathing and eating due to the protrusion. He was transferred to a children’s hospital in Cincinnati where 22 doctors surgically removed the sack.

After a long and complicated operation, the emotional mom got to take her first look at her son, who was fit and healthy. The sack was gone and the little boy could breath and eat without any problems. When she saw her son’s unbelievable transformation, she couldn’t stop crying.

“I just cried because I didn’t know he had such beautiful long eyelashes and big brown eyes. They were perfect on both sides.”

The mom explains that little Zakary found it difficult to take in the fact that the sack was suddenly gone.

“The first couple of days, he kept swatting at his face, like ‘Wait a second, I’m not seeing it; I’m not feeling it.’”

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